Best Startup
At Best Startup US we track over 1,000,000 US startups and over 3 million people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top United States based CEO’ operating in the Mobile Apps space. If you think a CEO’ is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.us.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Paul Davison
Co-Founder and CEO of Clubhouse
Paul Davison is the Co-Founder and CEO of Clubhouse. Davison is a San Diego native who graduated from Stanford and then earned his MBA from Stanford Business School. He had an internship at Google between degrees. Davison worked at consulting firm Bain and Co. before joining database startup Metaweb, which was acquired by Google in 2010. Previously he was an entrepreneur in residence at Benchmark Capital.
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About Clubhouse, Clubhouse: Clubhouse is an audio-based social app that allows users to spontaneously join group chats.
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Abraham Shafi
Founder and CEO of IRL
Abe attended UC Berkeley and studied the intersection of computer engineering, business, cultural anthropology and sociology before starting his first company, getTalent, a highly acclaimed social recruiting platform, prompting him to leave school. The platform was born of out a personal experience while job hunting and realizing there was improvements to be made with the resume-sorting process. The platform leveraged data science to take away the biases from the hiring process, thus helping organizations hire the best talent. getTalent had global clients including Walmart, JetBlue and Viacom, and was later sold to Dice in 2013. In 2018, Abe founded IRL because he was personally driven to build an app that would bring people together. He found his addiction to social media was related to his own depression and left him close to quitting social media all together. This propelled him to make a social product that could help people feel connected in a way that felt healthier and less addictive. Since inception, the app has brought friends together over 600M times. IRL has eleven employees and is based in San Francisco, California. In Abe’s spare time, he likes playing piano and composing music. Currently, he is most interested in merging electronic music with classical leveraging deep folkloric music from around the world, blending with archeologic tunes of humankind’s musical history.
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About IRL: Groups, Chats, Events
Oleg Tscheltzoff
Co-Founder & CEO of Fotolia
Oleg Tscheltzoff is Co-Founder & CEO at Fotolia. Oleg Tscheltzoff is the Investor of LOTS18. Oleg Tscheltzoff is one of the top serial internet entrepreneurs but also a successful angel investor with over 30 investments, board member, serious innovator, provocateur, disruptor, and connector. As an entrepreneur, Oleg has leveraged a global vision and knowledge of international business, management and marketing to develop successful online businesses. In 2004 Oleg co-founded Fotolia.com, the first global online social marketplace for creative digital stock images. As president, he led the company to the world’s largest microstock photography site. Prior to Fotolia, Oleg co-founded Amen, the leading Internet hosting company in France, which was sold in 2004 to Vianetworks (NASDAC Symbol VNWIE).
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About 90 Seconds, Aircall, Birchbox, Bird, Calm, Carta, Customer.io, Dealroom.co, Doctrine, eFounders, Farfetch, Fotolia, Molotov TV, Opendoor, PandaDoc, PayFit, Robinhood, SimpliField, StarOfService, Stash Financial, talent.io, Tempow, WeWork: Fotolia is an image bank that offers a crowdsourced library, which includes royalty-free images, vectors, illustrations and video clips.
Harpreet Rai
CEO of ŌURA
Harpreet Singh Rai is the chief executive officer of Oura and a member of its board. He was previously at Eminence Capital, a L/S Equity Hedge Fund where he was a TMT Portfolio Manager. Previously he was at Morgan Stanley in their M&A Group in New York.
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About ŌURA: ŌURA is a wellness ring and app used for sleep improvement and performance.
Brad Bao
Co-founder & CEO of Lime
Brad Bao is a Co-Founder and CEO at Lime (formerly LimeBike), the largest and leading micromobility company. He also currently serves as the Managing Director of Kinzon Capital (Fosun Group), a cross-border fund that investing in early-stage technology companies in both US and China, focusing on mobile and internet-related investments. Believing in the synergy between the two largest market and innovation of US and China, Kinzon Capital is positioned to bridge the gap and bring them together. Investments include: Volta Discord Doc.ai AirMart Alcove Cabana Circle (smart gym) ePal Firefly Flex (Female product) Founders Suite Zero & (Zero And, previous EnjoyFuji.com) Gotit Kiwi Drop Lyte (powerbank sharing) Made Renovation On Deck Shackle Spout Clinic TellUs (real-estate investing & saving) Velo Bikes (adam’s startup) Visdom (financial planning saas) WorkStream Prior to joining Kinzon Capital, Brad served as the General Manager of Tencent America, and VP of BD of Tencent Games for over 8 years, during that time Brad built the Tencent US branch from scratch, and was responsible for the overall P&L including investments, strategy, globalization, BD, and overall operation. He led and participated in investments including Hi-Rez, Fireforge, Zam, and more, and served as board member of several. Brad obtained bachelor degree in International Marketing from Wuhan University, and received his MBA from Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.
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About Lime: Lime helps people move around their cities in an affordable and convenient way while eliminating their carbon footprint.
Wayne Ting
Chief Executive Officer of Lime
Wayne Ting is Lime’s Chief Executive Officer. Wayne joined Lime in October 2018 as Global Head of Operations and Strategy and has been instrumental in the company’s drive towards operational excellence and path to profitability. Before joining Lime, Wayne spent more than four years at Uber, serving in various roles including Chief of Staff to CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, and General Manager of Uber’s Northern California business. Wayne previously served as a Senior Policy Advisor on the White House’s National Economic Council under President Obama where he focused on housing finance reform. Prior to the White House, Wayne worked at Bain Capital and at McKinsey & Company. Before that, he co-founded CampusNetwork.com, the first college-based social networking site (started close to 6 months before Facebook). Wayne is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Business School.
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About Lime: Lime helps people move around their cities in an affordable and convenient way while eliminating their carbon footprint.
Toby Sun
Co-Founder and CEO of Lime
Toby Sun is the CEO and Co-founder of Lime, the leading global micromobility company that has revolutionized the first and last-mile transportation challenge. Lime has raised $777 million and is backed by world-leading investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue, GGV, IDG, DCM, Franklin Templeton, Section 32, AME Cloud Ventures, Stanford Start-X, Kevin Durant, etc. Prior to Lime (formerly LimeBike), Toby was an investment director at Fosun Kinzon Capital, a $400M US-China cross-border venture fund backed by Fosun Group, focusing on early and growth-stage investment in consumer internet and IoT space. Toby invested in Tapingo, Grubmarket, Usens, Ding’Ding Smart Lock, and was involved in the board duties. Prior to Fosun, Toby was a Product and Marketing Manager at PepsiCo and managed a large US-China cross-border team, where he launched Gatorade in China and managed 7UP ($300M annual sales). Toby also worked as a management consultant at Monitor Group and Deloitte Consulting’s San Francisco office. Toby holds an MBA from Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley, and is a frequent guest speaker.
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About Lime, Lime: Lime helps people move around their cities in an affordable and convenient way while eliminating their carbon footprint.
Timi Ajiboye
CEO & CTO of Buycoins
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About Buycoins: Buycoins is a cryptocurrency exchange that allows Africans buy and sell cryptocurrencies instantly using their local currency.
Ryan Rzepecki
founder and CEO of Social Bicycles
Ryan Rzepecki was the founder and CEO of NYC-based JUMP Bikes (acquired by Uber in 2018), focused on developing innovative solutions for urban transportation. Early in his career, Rzepecki worked as a planner in the bikes division of New York City’s Department of Transportation. During that time, he worked extensively to bring bike facilities to more New Yorkers. It was this experience that led him to design a high-tech bike share model that he entered in the Copenhagen Design Competition. By 2010, he founded the company under its original name Social Bicycles, and set out to realize his vision of using bicycles as a smarter, cleaner, and more fun mode of urban transportation. His company pioneered “smart bike” technology, allowing bike share to go dockless and become more accessible and convenient for riders. In 2013, Rzepecki was named one of the 100 Coolest People in Tech by Business Insider and one of the Top 100 City Innovators Worldwide by UBM’s Future Cities. He received his master’s degree in urban planning from Hunter College of the City University of New York and his bachelor’s degree in marketing and international business from Pennsylvania State University.
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About Social Bicycles: Social Bicycles provides a scalable bikeshare technology.
Yakir Gola
Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Gopuff
As a freshman at Drexel University, Yakir Gola met co-founder Rafael Ilishayev on the first day of their Business 101 class, and the two went on to start Gopuff a year later. A first-generation American who grew up in an entrepreneurial family, Yakir – along with Rafael – have grown Gopuff into one of the fastest growing tech companies in the U.S. with operations in more than 650 cities, leveraging its network of over 250 micro-fulfillment centers and recently acquired BevMo! stores to fulfill orders of thousands of everyday essentials to customers in 30 minutes. Constantly analyzing the business and industry to identify potential for growth, Yakir’s data-driven approach to business and strategic insights motivate and drive the company forward. Yakir, along with Rafael, was named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list in the Retail & Ecommerce category in 2017, in 2019 received the Drexel University Founders Award and in 2020, Gopuff was named to CNBC’s Disruptor 50. Yakir is closely involved with Chabad serving Drexel University and spearheads many of Gopuff’s philanthropic efforts, including recent $1 million matching donation for the Boys & Girls Clubs COVID-19 Relief Funds.
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About Gopuff: Gopuff is digital delivery service designed to deliver daily essentials within minutes.
Rafael Ilishayev
Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Gopuff
Rafael Ilishayev is a first-generation American who grew up with an entrepreneurial family in the New York metro area. Rafael met Yakir Gola in their first Business 101 class at Drexel University and the two went on to start Gopuff the following year. Together, they’ve grown Gopuff into the instant needs category creator and one of the fastest growing tech companies with 7,000 employees across the country. Today, Gopuff has operations in more than 650 U.S. cities, leveraging its network of over 250 micro-fulfillment centers and recently acquired BevMo! stores to fulfill orders of thousands of everyday essentials to customers in 30 minutes. Under Rafael’s leadership, every Gopuff initiative – big or small – is developed with a customer-first mentality. Rafael, along with Yakir, was named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list in the Retail & Ecommerce category in 2017, in 2019 received the Drexel University Founders Award and in 2020, Gopuff was named to CNBC’s Disruptor 50. Rafael is closely involved with his alma mater, Drexel University, through the Charles D. Close School of Entrepreneurship and Chabad Serving Drexel University.
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About Gopuff: Gopuff is digital delivery service designed to deliver daily essentials within minutes.
Arsen Tomsky
CEO & Founder of inDriver
Arsen Tomsky is the founder and CEO of inDriver. He leads the company’s global team of more than 1500 employees and over 100 million-user inDriver ecosystem in 34 countries around the world. Arsen founded inDriver in 2013 and developed the business into the world’s fastest growing ride-hailing services. Arsen grew up in Yakutsk, Russia, and received his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Yakutsk State University. He is a passionate runner and finisher of the Chicago and Tokyo Marathons.
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About inDriver: inDriver is the world’s fastest-growing ride-hailing service.
Sunmeet Jolly
Founder & CEO of GROTU
Founder and Patent holder – GROTU mobile app @ 101 Islands LLC. Angel investor in 40 pre-IPO technology startups. Frequently invited by accelerators and angel forums to Judge startup competitions and discuss technology innovation. Former IT Consulting industry executive who sold hundreds of millions of dollars in consulting services to Fortune 500 companies working for Cap Gemini, HCL, L&T, NTT data.
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About GROTU: Patented GROTU app provides a much needed “private” collection of productivity and communication tools for friends and family social groups
Greg Kidd
Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer of GlobaliD
Believer that ones identity credentials should be truly portable and owned by individuals themselves rather than corporations or governments. The trade-off between security and privacy can meet the needs of both traditional institutions worried about compliance and risk, but also consumer protection advocates who care about the underserved and underbanked. Adviser/Investor via hardyaka.com for numerous startups in the exchange space including Shift, Ripple and 3taps, and previously Square and Twitter. Previously a director at Promontory Financial and a senior analyst for payments at The Board of Governor of the Federal Reserve. Senior Associate at Booz Allen. Founded and took Dispatch Management Services Corp public on the NASDAQ. Have worked as an instructor/leader for Outward Bound and the National Outdoor Leadership School. Specialties: Portable identity, digital currencies and exchange markets for goods, services, and information with functional emphasis on messaging, payments, and reputation/trust/risk. Well versed in visualizations for risk reporting and controls.
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About Apto Payments, GlobaliD, Hard Yaka: Create and manage your own portable, digital identity with globaliD.
David and Daniil Liberman
CEO of Product Science
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About Brothers Ventures, Product Science: Performance management platform for mobile
John Riccitiello
CEO of Unity Technologies
Since joining Unity as CEO in 2014, John Riccitiello has been a driving force in the successful launch of Unity 5 – the company’s next-generation multiplatform engine and development tools. Previously serving as CEO of Electronic Arts, John played a critical role in the company’s transformation into a mobile, online, and digital gaming leader, with subsequent revenue growth exceeding $1.6 billion during that time. John is also an active private investor, serving on Unity’s board since 2013 as well as Syntertainment, Telltale Games, and a few other higher-ed and non-profit boards. In addition, he was an investor and advisor to Oculus.
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About Unity Technologies: Unity provides multiplatform tools and services to developers of interactive content.
David Ko
Co-founder and CEO of Ripple Health Group
David Ko is the Co-founder and CEO of Ripple Health Group (RHG), an early stage healthtech startup focused on helping people experience healthier lives by connecting them to the care, support, and community they need. Prior to RHG, David was the President, COO and Board Member of Rally Health, a digital health company that develops online and mobile solutions that make it easy for consumers to take charge of their health and health care. Rally’s solutions are currently available to nearly 55 million people through health plans, care providers, and more than 200,000 employers. Prior to joining Rally, David oversaw all strategy, planning and operations as COO at Zynga, which he helped take public in December 2011. At the time of its IPO, Zynga was the largest social gaming company in the world with over 100 million daily active users. Prior to his work at Zynga, he spent 10 years at Yahoo! in various senior executive roles, including SVP of Yahoo!’s audience, mobile, and local businesses. David serves on the board of overseers at his alma mater New York University Stern School of Business where in 2016 he established the NYU Stern Venture Fellows program for aspiring entrepreneurs. He also works as an advisor and investor to a number of companies in Silicon Valley including Calm, the number one app for Sleep, Meditation and Relaxation.
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About Audax Health Solutions, Calm, Ripple Health Group: Ripple Health Group is a platform for the world’s most trusted healthcare solutions.
Jason Chicola
Founder, CEO of Rev.com
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About Rev.com: Rev’s speech-to-text services are powered by artificial intelligence and perfected by a community of skilled freelancers.
Alessandra Lezama
CEO of TOOTRiS
Alessandra Lezama is an entrepreneur and PE backed CEO, advocate for women pursuing careers in tech and other STEM fields, angel investor to San Diego-based early-stage companies and Founder and CEO of TOOTRiS, an on-demand Child Care technology platform that is reinventing how parents access and pay for affordable, high-quality Child Care. Passionate about technology, Alessandra has enjoyed an illustrious career of taking underperforming tech companies and turning them into scalable, high-performance powerhouses. Prior to founding TOOTRiS, Alessandra was the CEO for multiple technology companies, including AbacusNext, a San Diego-based company she stepped into with 29 employees and, in less than four years, transformed into a disruptive global technology organization with more than 500 employees across San Diego, Canada and the United Kingdom. Companies under Alessandra’s leadership have been recognized in Forbes and Inc., and in 2016 and 2017 she was named “Women Who Mean Business,” in 2018 as “Most Admired CEO of the Year” and in 2019 as “Most Influential” by the San Diego Business Journal. Alessandra is a member of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, serving on its board and management council. She serves on the board of Doors of Change, a non-profit that is helping to break the cycle and save the lives of runaway, homeless, and trafficked young people. She is a member of the California Preschool Business Advisory Council, supporting efforts to produce viable policy for high quality early education that gives a competitive edge for California’s businesses, both immediately and the future.
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About TOOTRiS: TOOTRiS is a technology platform that allows parents affordable access to high-quality Child Care, anytime, anywhere.
Prerna Gupta
Founder & CEO of HOOKED
Prerna Gupta is the Founder & CEO at HOOKED.
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About HOOKED: HOOKED is redefining entertainment for the Snapchat generation.
Tracy Chou
Founder & CEO of Block Party
Tracy Chou is an entrepreneur, software engineer, and diversity advocate. She spent five years at Pinterest as an engineer and tech lead and was an early engineer at Quora prior to that. She is a co-founder of Project Include, a non-profit working with tech startups on diversity and inclusion, and #MovingForward, a movement working with VC firms to establish and publish anti-harassment policies; and an investment scout and advisor for several Bay Area VC firms. In her latest venture she is CEO of Block Party, with a mission to solve online harassment and abuse.
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About Block Party, Pinterest, Project Include: Block Party is a consumer app that tackles online harassment and puts you back in control.
Walter Driver
Co-Founder, Chairman & Co-CEO of Scopely
Walter Driver is the co-founder, Chairman and co-Chief Executive Officer of Scopely, one of the fastest-growing mobile-first video game companies. Scopely creates and publishes a highly-diverse portfolio of top-grossing, immersive game experiences, including: the award-winning ”MARVEL Strike Force,” “Scrabble® GO,” “Star Trek™ Fleet Command” and”Yahtzee® With Buddies,” among others, which are played by hundreds of millions of players worldwide. Fueled by a world-class team, Scopely leverages its proprietary technology platform Playgami to bring directed-by-consumer, interactive experiences to audiences around the globe. Under Walter’s leadership, the company has achieved billions of dollars in lifetime revenue and attracted more than $1 billion in financing from leading venture capital firms, tech luminaries and cultural icons.
Walter has been recognized as one of the “100 Most Influential Young Executives” by The Business Journal, “Visionary of the Year” by C-Suite Quarterly, “Entrepreneur of the Year” by Ernst & Young, a “Young Global Shaper” by the World Economic Forum, one of the “100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs” by Goldman Sachs and a “Dealmaker of the Year” by Variety. Under Walter’s leadership, Scopely has also received many recognitions, including: “Best-led Company” in 2021 by Inc. magazine, “Private Company of the Year” in 2021 by Los Angeles Business Journal, a four time “Best Places to Work” winner by Built In LA, and a two time “World’s Most Innovative Companies” winner by Fast Company. Scopely has also been recognized on top charts such as Deloitte’s “Technology Fast 500,” being named the second fastest-growing technology company in North America and in the Top 10 mobile app charts for consumer spend.
Walter is an investor and advisor to many private technology companies as well as a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization and Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Los Angeles Technology & Innovation Council. Prior to Scopely, Walter founded and served as CEO of O Negative Media where he developed online social games. Before O Negative, he co-founded Ignition Interactive, one of the first developers of third-party applications for Facebook.
Walter holds a B.A. in English Literature from Brown University.
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About Scopely: Scopely is a global leader in interactive entertainment and mobile-first video games.
Javier Ferreira
Co-CEO & Board Member of Scopely
Javier Ferreira is the co-CEO of Scopely, one of the fastest-growing mobile games companies in the West. A longtime digital media and technology executive with 15+ years of experience in gaming, Javier joined Scopely in 2014 as Chief Operating Officer to expand its business operations, strategy, slate and partnerships. In 2016, he became President, overseeing all aspects of day-to-day operations and joined the Scopely Board. In 2019, he became co-CEO with co-founder Walter Driver. Since Javier joined the business in 2014, Scopely has scaled 35x with a highly-diverse, top-grossing games slate, including the award-winning MARVEL Strike Force, Scrabble® GO, Star Trek™ Fleet Command and YAHTZEE® With Buddies, among many others. Javier’s leadership has helped Scopely achieve accolades such as recognition in Fast Company’s “World’s Most Innovative Companies” and Entrepreneur’s “30 Startups to Watch” as well as ranking #2 on Deloitte’s “Technology Fast 500” and #9 on Inc. magazine’s “Inc. 5000” as one of the fastest-growing companies in North America. In 2019, Javier was also recognized by Variety as a “Dealmaker of the Year.” Prior to Scopely, Javier served as Senior Vice President of Games Publishing at Disney Interactive, where he oversaw a large slate of mobile, console and online digital properties—helping establish the brand as a world-class publisher with over 500 million downloads and $1 billion in revenue during his tenure. Earlier in his career, Javier served as Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Europe at JAMDAT Mobile, which was acquired by Electronic Arts during his tenure for $680 million. Javier helped build the JAMDAT business into a top mobile games publisher in Europe. Following the company’s exit, Javier served as Vice President of Publishing at EA where he drove the brand’s global strategy and technology investments across the EMEA region, as well as expanded international distribution and closed a wide range of strategic partnerships with major IP holders. Javier began his career in gaming at Telefónica Mobile as Head of Product, Games. Javier holds a B.S. in Economics from the University of Warwick and a M.S. in Social Anthropology from the University of Oxford.
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About Scopely: Scopely is a global leader in interactive entertainment and mobile-first video games.
Jesse Pickard
CEO of Elevate Labs
Jesse Pickard is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Elevate.
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About Elevate Labs: Elevate is a cognitive training tool designed to build communication and analytical skills.
Michael Heyward
CEO of medialab
Serial entrepreneur Michael Heyward co-founded Whisper with Brad Brooks in 2012 with the mission of giving people a place to freely and authentically express themselves. Whisper is one of the fastest-growing media companies, generating over 17 billion content views per month. Prior to Whisper, the LA native worked in different roles related to consumer-based marketing at startup TigerText. As a teenager, Michael was an avid Formula One Racing fan and secured the United States commercial rights for the sport. In 2016, Michael was named one of AdWeek’s “Young Influentials”. In 2014, he was named one of Forbes Magazine’s “30 Under 30” and one of Fast Company’s “Most Creative People in Business.” Michael is a frequent keynote speaker and has spoken at a number of prominent conferences, including WSJ D, Fortune Tech Brainstorm, TechCrunch Disrupt, and Business Insider Ignition.
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About medialab: medialab is a media & technology company that engages in acquiring and growing internet brands.
Hamza Zia
Founder & CEO of GitStart
Founder and CEO at GitStart (YC S19) Y Combinator-backed startup that helps engineering-focused companies be more agile, scale feature deployment faster, and reduce management complexity. Passionate about technology and programming from a very young age, I have built technology-based businesses globally and scaled high-performance teams across San Francisco, Zurich, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. Worked closely on the core Microsoft Azure team at Shanghai, helping improve their cloud platform, and was recognized as an outstanding individual contributor.
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About GitStart: The modern way to scale your tech team
Candice Peters
CEO and Founder of Hello Parent
Candice is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Hello Parent and Lolihops.
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About Hello Parent: Hello Parent provides parents a convenient way to plan playdates, parties, special events and other activities.
Kevin Long
Co-Founder & CEO of The Dyrt
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About : The Dyrt is consumer subscription software and top ranked camping app, with over 1.5M user-submitted reviews and tips across the U.S.
Torri Shack
CEO / Co-Founder of Twella
Energetic and innovative Business Development Executive with more than 10 + years of experience in building and managing highly motivated sales and delivery teams. Flair for developing and growing market penetration through strategic partnerships, creative marketing and sales campaigns. Track record of building substantial sales and marketing teams and systems. PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY • Strong leadership skills with a proven history of building motivated and focused teams by investing in people through listening, coaching, training and mentoring. • 15 years’ experience in selling across a variety of platforms including outbound phone sales, cold calling, qualifying and converting leads, presentations, networking and managing a geographically distributed sales force. • Broad sales and business development experience across various industries including: property, mortgage, real estate, wellness, and technology. • Experienced in designing and implementing targeted focused sales and marketing campaigns with a track record of rapidly growing and maintaining market share. • Well-developed analytical and problem-solving skills. • Broad social media and technology experience with an innate understanding of what will work best on which platform. • Managed and exceeded KPI’s across various and diverse industries. • Strong financial management, budgeting and forecasting skills. • Highly organized with great time managements skills with the ability to focus on detail without losing sight of the bigger picture.
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About Tangible Movement, Twella: A mindful approach to mental wellness
Mike Kinder
CEO, Co-Founder of Veryable
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About Veryable: Veryable is an industrial technology company with marketplaces designed to improve speed, flexibility, and agility in manufacturing.
Adam Farish
Co-founder and CEO of 8Stem
Adam Farish is a musician, producer, sound engineer, and tech entrepreneur. Before designing the 8Stem format and platform, Adam was the co-founder of SmartAmerica Home Automation. He was also a nationally touring EDM DJ with two albums, multiple EPs and several 12” singles to his credit. Adam was also co-owner (with his wife) of the Outlook Inn on Orcas Island.
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About 8Stem, ToneBirds: 8Stem allows smartphone users to practice the power of a sound engineer and DJ artist.
Michael Ritter
Founder & CEO of Maple Media
Michael Ritter is the Founder and CEO of Maple Media, a mobile apps and games company backed by private equity firm Shamrock Capital. Maple Media is a mobile media, advertising and technology company that acquires, manages and operates mobile applications focused on the utility, productivity, games and entertainment verticals. Popular titles include Snowboard Party: World Tour, Skateboard Party, Minesweeper Classic, Sudoku 🙂 and CalConvert. Previously he was SVP of Business & Corporate Development for Jam City, a large social and mobile game company based in Los Angeles where he oversaw mergers & acquisition activities, publishing, licensing, distribution, sales, legal and partnerships for social and mobile games. Michael was also the Founder and Publisher of Saturday Night Magazine, which at the time, he built into the largest circulated monthly collegiate lifestyle and entertainment magazine in the country.
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About Fantasy Baseball Arbitration, Maple Media: Maple Media is a mobile media, advertising, and technology company that acquires and operates category-leading, consumer apps.
John Krajewski
Founder and CEO of Strange Loop Games
John Krajewski is founder and CEO of Strange Loop Games, a studio focused on evolving the classroom by connecting entertainment and educational games. He is currently the designer of the US Department of Education funded ecology game ‘Eco’ and the forthcoming National Science Foundation funded ‘Exo’. His background is the console games industry, having worked at EA and Midway prior to founding Strange Loop. After founding Strange Loop Games in 2009, he has led development on 6 titles including a suite of games for Amplify Education, and the Steam and Playstation Indie hit ‘Vessel’.
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About Strange Loop Games: Strange Loop Games is an video game developer.
Allen Chen
CEO & Co-Founder of Fitbod
Allen is the Co-founder & CEO of Fitbod.
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About Fitbod: Fitbod allows users to maximize the use of indoor gym equipment and confidence to train effectively for strength.
Maurice Harary
Founder and CEO of Fluz
Maurice is a Founder of the Fluz App. He is a serial entrepreneur with a 10-year background in e-commerce. He currently manages over 20 e-commerce sites in the B2B and B2C environment, ranging from interactive learning-based experiences to price-competitive marketplace trading sites. Experience in all areas of e-commerce sites, ranging from custom e-commerce software development to operational planning. He has extensive experience in fashion eCommerce and marketplace selling.
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About Fluz: Reinventing cashback to give you more. Get paid when you shop + when your friends shop. Earn Cashback Forever.
Joshua Gordon
President and CEO of Red Pocket Mobile
Joshua Gordon is the president and CEO of Red Pocket Mobile.
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About Democracy Council, Red Pocket Mobile: Red Pocket Mobile is a different kind of wireless company.
Brad Griffith
Chief Executive Officer of Gametime
Brad Griffith After nearly missing a San Francisco Giants NLCS game because he didn’t have access to print his tickets, Brad Griffith reimagined a simpler process for buying tickets on the go. Focusing completely on the mobile experience, Brad wrote v1.0 of the Gametime iOS application in 2012 and now leads a passionate team focused on mobilizing the ticket buying process for fans. He’s fascinated with fan experience – answering the question: How can we make it faster and easier to attend games? Brad is a Santa Cruz native and huge S.F. Giants, Golden State Warriors and 49ers fan. After earning an Engineering degree from Stanford, he followed his dreams to work in sports by helping the Colorado Rockies and Chicago White Sox (2005 World Series Champs!) build statistical infrastructure to analyze player value. In 2010, he helped launch Zappedy, which delivered customer analytics for local businesses (sold to Groupon in 2011). At Gametime, he’s able to combine his love of sports and analytics to help fans attend more games and connect with their communities.
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About Gametime: Gametime sells last-minute tickets to the most popular events in sports, music, and theater.
Timothy Li
Founder and CEO of Fluid Credit
Timothy has been working in FinTech and Marketplace Lending industry for the past decade. He has launched various marketplace lending platforms and held c-level positions at RealtyMogul.com, loanDepot.com, Quick Bridge Funding, Think Finance and JPMorgan Chase. Timothy also co-founded LendFoundry.com, KuberFinancial.com MaxDecision.com. He also sits on various advisory boards such as Ziero Finance, Solar Mosaic, Blinker Inc., Docitt and CreditExchange.in. Timothy holds various degrees from Harvard Business School, University of Southern California and San Jose State University.
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About Alchemy, Fluid Credit, kuber, MaxDecisions, University of Southern California: Fluid Credit provides university students with credit and personal finance education.
Sanchali Pal
Founder & CEO of Joro
Sanchali Pal currently works as the Founder and CEO for Joro App. She previously worked at Tesla as the Market Access Intern.
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About Joro: Joro is an app that tracks the users’ carbon footprint and develops a climate action practice.
Nimit S. Sawhney
Co-Founder,CEO of Voatz
Nimit has 14 years experience in mobile software development, information security, embedded systems including 5 yrs as the business/technical head of a R&D unit. Nimit holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering and Business Management from the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
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About Voatz: Voatz is a mobile election voting platform, secured via smart biometrics, real time ID verification, and the blockchain for irrefutability.
Luis von Ahn
CEO & Co-Founder of Duolingo
Louis von Ahn is the CEO and Co-Founder of Duolingo. He is an associate professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, and he’s at the forefront of the crowdsourcing craze. His work takes advantage of the evergrowing Web-connected population to achieve collaboration in unprecedented numbers. His projects aim to leverage the crowd for human good. His company reCAPTCHA, sold to Google in 2009, digitizes human knowledge (books), one word at a time. His new project is Duolingo, which aims to get 100 million people translating the Web in every major language.
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About Carnegie Mellon University, Duolingo: Duolingo is a language-learning education platform that offers 98 total courses across nearly 40 distinct languages.
Derek Collison
Founder & CEO of Synadia Communications
Derek Collison is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Synadia Communications. An industry veteran and pioneer in large-scale distributed systems and enterprise computing, Derek founded Apcera and has held executive positions at VMware, Google and TIBCO Software. Derek created NATS.io and CloudFoundry as well as TIBCO’s messaging systems. As Chief Technology Officer and Chief Architect of Cloud Application Platforms at VMware, he co-founded the cloud computing group and designed and architected Cloud Foundry, the industry’s first open PaaS. During Derek’s time at Google, he co-founded the AJAX APIs group. Prior to Google, Derek spent more than a decade at TIBCO, where he designed and implemented a wide range of messaging products, including Rendezvous and EMS. As TIBCO’s Senior Vice President and Chief Architect, Derek led technical and strategic product direction and delivery. Derek is a sought after speaker and collaborator. Derek holds more than 20 software patents and is a recognized leader in distributed systems design and architecture, as well as emerging cloud platforms. Derek earned a Bachelor’s degree with honors in Computer Science from the University of Maryland.
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About Covaxx, Heavybit, NATS, Savonix, Synadia Communications, Vicarious, Xperiel: Powering the secure connective technologies to drive cloud and edge native
Hao Li
CEO & Co-Founder of Pinscreen
Hao Li is Founder and CEO of Pinscreen, Inc., and Distinguished Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. He was previously Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southern California, Director of the USC Institute for Creative Technologies, a visiting professor at Weta Digital and a research lead at Industrial Light & Magic / Lucasfilm. For his contributions in non-rigid shape registration, human digitization, and real-time facial performance capture, Hao received the TR35 Award in 2013, recognizing him as one of the top 35 innovators under the age of 35, from the MIT Technology Review. He was named Andrew and Erna Viterbi Early Career Chair in 2015, and was awarded the Google Faculty Research Award and the Okawa Foundation Research Grant the same year. He won the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Award in 2018. He is best known for his work on dynamic geometry processing, facial animation, and data-driven techniques for making 3D human digitization and facial animation accessible to the masses. During his PhD, Hao co-created the first real-time and markerless system for performance-driven facial animation based on depth sensors. The team later commercialized a variant of this technology as the facial animation software Faceshift (acquired by Apple Inc. in 2015 and incorporated into the iPhone X in 2017). He was brought on as visiting professor at Weta Digital to build the high-fidelity facial performance capture pipeline for reenacting the deceased actor Paul Walker in the movie Furious 7 (2015). His recent research focuses on combining techniques in Deep Learning and Computer Graphics to facilitate the creation of 3D avatars and to enable true immersive face-to-face communication and telepresence in Virtual Reality.
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About Pinscreen, University of California Berkeley: Revolutionizing digital communication and online human interactions with user-generated and personalized 3D virtual avatars.
Corey Ashton Walters
Founder & CEO of Here
Corey Ashton Walters is the Founder & CEO of Here, a revolutionary online marketplace that enables anyone anywhere to invest in vacation rentals online and earn passive income—without ever lifting a finger. Prior to founding Here, Corey, a seasoned entrepreneur, brand builder, and college dropout, has founded multiple successful companies over the last 15 years. Most recently in 2017, Corey co-founded Homeworthy, a venture-backed first-of-its-kind fully remote home selling experience available to homeowners located in more than 900 cities across the Pacific Northwest.
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About Here: Here makes investing in vacation rentals as easy as buying stocks.
David Siegel
Co-Founder and CEO of Glide
David Siegel is the co-founder and CEO of Glide. He previously worked at Microsoft. He also held positions at Xamarin, Futureproof, and X1 Technologies. David holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and computer science engineering.
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About Glide: Build powerful apps from spreadsheets without code, in minutes.
Srinivas Balasubramanian
CEO of Photon
Srinivas Balasubramanian is Founder, Chairman and CEO of Photon, the leading Cloud to Consumer UX™ Company. Srinivas Balasubramanian has a track record of building category dominating, highly profitable companies with significant market value. Since 2007 when he took over as full time CEO at Photon, the company has worked with hundreds of customers including a significant percentage of the Fortune 100 and generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. Prior to taking over as CEO of Photon Infotech, Srinivas Balasubramanian was a Senior Vice President at webMethods, a Nasdaq listed middleware technology company reporting to the CEO. Prior to that, Srinivas Balasubramanian was Founder, President and CEO of Infravio Inc, a Cupertino, CA based company which was a leading provider of Web Services and SOA infrastructure software that coined the term and created the category “SOA Governance”. Infravio was acquired by webMethods for $38mn in cash in 2006. Srinivas Balasubramanian served in various capacities at Infravio – initially as founding CEO responsible for raising the initial institutional Venture capital round in 2000. Thereafter, he served as Chief Strategist of the company between 2001 and January 2005 where he was responsible for closing a strategic financing round from NetIQ Corp and for closing a large number of the early customers. In January 2005, Srinivas Balasubramanian took over as CEO of Infravio. As CEO, he replaced the executive management team and drove the company to a thought and customer leadership position in the emerging Web Services and SOA market until its ultimate sale to webMethods in September 2006, which he architected. Srinivas was earlier an equity and derivatives trader at JP Morgan and Credit Lyonnais Securities at Mumbai, India. At Credit Lyonnais, he headed the largest institutional trading in the country that won almost every award on offer at the time he ran it. Srinivas has an MBA from Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Calcutta and is a graduate from Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani.
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About Photon: Photon is a technology corporation that provides Strategy Consulting, Creative Design, and Technology Services to global enterprise.
Mario Ciabarra
Founder & CEO of Quantum Metric
In 2015, Mario founded Quantum Metric to help organizations align with a single version of customer-defined and quantified truth. Previously founding and exiting an APM startup which solved where enterprise applications could be improved, Mario saw the natural next step was expanding organizational alignment around the entire product lifecycle.
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About Quantum Metric: Quantum Metric is a continuous product design platform that helps organizations build better products faster.
Chase Harmer
Chief Executive Officer of PayCertify
Integrity, honesty, and longevity. Those are the qualities that have shaped Chase Harmer, a successful entrepreneur, leader, speaker, and innovator. For 15 years, Chase has built businesses, led companies, created products, and helped bring the best out of his employees. As a merchant services professional, Chase has launched several companies and products—such as MLS Hotel, Power Payments, Payment Reservations, and Pay Certify—that focus on hotel and e-commerce verticals. His companies process transactions and create software products that help increase cash flow and longevity of merchant accounts in those industries.
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About PayCertify: The PayCertify Companies Inc. is an All-In-One payments co and digital wallet with a family of brands and services in the US, EU and CA.
Vitaly Alexandrov
CEO & Founder of Food Rocket
Currently nominated for Forbes 30 under 30, two-time winner of the Oxford’s Fund scholarship. In 2019, together with partners, Vitaly launched the Foody startup to optimize the restaurant procurement process in the U.S. Three months later, Foody was showing a monthly growth of 20%. In 2021 due to the pandemic, the startup pivoted and launched San Francisco’s first 10-15-minute grocery delivery service called Food Rocket. Previously, Vitaly was the CEO and founder of the international CRM marketing agency Out of Cloud that provides consumer data analysis and helps companies build personalized marketing. The agency’s clients include Puma, Panasonic, Nikon, Alfa Bank and Pfizer. The agency won the Best Use of eCRM category at Tagline Awards in 2017 and Best Use of Analytics in Loyalty Programs at Loyalty Awards in 2018. At 27, Vitaliy wrote the Email Marketing Strategy book that was a bestseller at Ozon.
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About Food Rocket: Food Rocket is an application that provides customers with on-demand 10-15 minute free grocery delivery.
Gregory Stewart
CEO of Ladder
Gregory Stewart is the CEO at Ladder.
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About Ladder: Ladder is a strength training app that provides a workout plan, every single day.
Christopher Sopher
Co-Founder and CEO of WhereBy.Us
CEO at WhereBy.Us.
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About WhereBy.Us: A platform that enables creators to build a media business for their community.
Ham Serunjogi
Co-Founder & CEO of Chipper Cash
Ham Serunjogi is a co-founder and CEO at Chipper Cash.
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About Chipper Cash: Chipper Cash is a fintech platform that offers mobile, cross-border money transfer services.
Neal Desai
CEO of Kafene
Neal Desai is the founder and CEO of Kafene, a fintech that is a one-stop-shop point-of-sale payment partner and underwriting technology platform that helps merchants offer flexible lease-to-own (LTO) purchase options for prime and nonprime consumers, helping retailers satisfy demand for furniture, appliances, electronics, tires and other goods.
Kafene utilizes more than 20,000 data inputs in tandem with best-in-class artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to underwrite, approve, and enable payment in a near-instantaneous manner, while creating a best-in-class customer experience.
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About Kafene: Kafene is a mission driven startup with the goal of empowering flexible ownership.
Michael Boswell
Co-Founder, CEO of Cue
Co-Founder and CEO of Cue. Previously an Entrepreneur in Residence at Khosla Ventures; Design Lead at Facebook, Google and Coatue. Founding member of several products with successful exits including Jobr, Pagemodo, and ContactMe.
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About Cue: The world’s first social calendar
Chris Hulls
Cofounder / CEO of Life360
Chris is the cofounder and CEO of Life360. Before doing the whole startup thing, he did a stint in banking at Goldman Sachs and spent a few years in the Air Force. He went to college at UC Berkeley, and was about to start class at Harvard Business School when he had a last minute change of heart and decided to pioneer the trend of being an ivy league pre-dropout. In his time off, Chris likes to do anything that involves machines that move–like building drones, driving cars, flying planes, and piloting hovercraft. He is also widely credited with coining the term App Store Optimization.
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About Life360: Life360 creates a mobile app for families that helps families feel closer together.
Kartik Chandrayana
CEO / Co-Founder of Twin Prime
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About Twin Prime: Twin Prime, a company that came out of stealth this week
Cristiano Oliveira
Founder + CEO of Olivia
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About Olivia: Olivia is an AI financial assistant that learns your spending patterns, predict your purchases and recommend ways to get more for your money
Chris Spanos
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Urgently
Chris Spanos is the Co founder and CEO of Urgent.ly. He is the Advisor of Startups. Prior to this, he worked as General Manager at Repair.com. He was the Founder & CEO of SeniorChecked. He worked as General Manager, Vice President, Director, International Product Management, Sr. Manager, Brand Development and Marketing Consultant at AOL LLC. He worked as Award Winning Producer at Independent Film Producer. He was the Consultant to CEO of 1-800 Members/DHL. He worked as Consultant to President at VidiSolutions. He served as Consultant to VP Product Management at RealNetworks. He worked as Consultant to U.S. Director of Business Development at Moonfruit. Before that, he worked as Consultant to VP of Broadband at Starwood Hotels & Resorts.
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About Pax Momentum, Urgently: Urgently features a roadside assistance industry to the benefit of global brands and roadside assistance professionals.
Jonathan Gray
CEO and Co-Founder of Encore Music Technologies
Jonathan Gray, founder and CEO of Cask, is an entrepreneur and software engineer with a background in startups, open source, and all things data. Prior to founding Cask, Jonathan was a software engineer at Facebook where he drove HBase engineering efforts, including Facebook Messages and several other large-scale projects, from inception to production. An open source evangelist, Jonathan was responsible for helping build the Facebook engineering brand through developer outreach and refocusing the open source strategy of the company. Prior to Facebook, Jonathan founded Streamy.com, where he became an early adopter of Hadoop and HBase and is now a core contributor and active committer in the community. Jonathan holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Business Administration from Carnegie Mellon University.
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About Encore Music Technologies, Orcada, The Apache Software Foundation: Encore is an interactive live music mobile-based platform aiming to help artists monetize their connections with fans.
Clinton Phillips
Founder of 2nd.MD and Medici & CEO of Medici
Clinton Phillips is the founder and CEO of Medici and launched the company in early 2017 with a vision to create technology that would revolutionize the way doctors provide care to their patients and to build a next generation virtual health+care system that gives patients access to a personal medical team made up of exceptional doctors, nurses, and specialists right from their phone.
As a serial-entrepreneur Clinton previously founded 2nd.MD in response to frustrations he had experienced when seeking medical care for his daughter, Gabi, who had suffered a stroke shortly after birth. 2nd.MD has since helped thousands of people in over 45 countries gain access to high-quality second opinions with outcomes that has saved lives and lowered healthcare and recovery costs for patients, providers and carriers. Clint sold 2nd.MD to Accolade in 2021.
Before this, Clinton served as a consultant to The Vitality Group working to lower healthcare spending through employee education and engagement programs. Clinton is also a certified Chiropractor and founded the successful Colorado-based Aspen Back & Body, a non-surgical rehabilitation clinic for people with back problems. Originally from South Africa, Clinton and his family now reside in Austin, Texas.
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About 2nd.MD, Medici: Medici is a mobile technology platform that provides text, video, and voice chats between patients and doctors.
Oliver Kharraz
CEO & Co-Founder of Zocdoc
Oliver Kharraz, MD, is CEO and founder of Zocdoc. Oliver is the most recent doctor in a 300-year family tradition. Over the course of his wide-ranging career, Oliver has accrued comprehensive experience effecting change and building efficiency in large scale healthcare organizations using information technology. Prior to Zocdoc, Oliver was an Associate Principal at the global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company. During his seven-year tenure at McKinsey & Co., Oliver developed and implemented new patient utilization models for the national health services of a number of governments and major hospital chains. In 1994, Oliver built and sold his first business – a forerunner of early internet software. He later became a resident doctor at the clinic of Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, where he earned an MD and a Doctorate in Neuroscience. Oliver also has a Masters Degree in Philosophy from the Jesuit College of Philosophy in Munich. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Born in Germany, Oliver immigrated to the U.S. during his work for McKinsey & Co. He currently resides in Brooklyn, NY, with his wife and their twin daughters.
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About Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), Zocdoc: Zocdoc is a digital marketplace company that connects healthcare patients and doctors.
Ned Kenney
Co-Founder & CEO of Laughable
Finance/biz dev background + tech nerdery + comedy fanaticism + millennial mandate to ‘do what I love’ –> starting Laughable. If you like comedy or podcasts, you should download our iOS app here: laughable.com/download _ _ _ The evidence is building that we’ve built something special: – 92% of our 275+ reviews are for 5 stars — a higher percentage than that of any other app focused on comedy or podcasts. – Our average user spends 3.5 hours per week listening to podcasts and 25 minutes per week directly engaging with our UI (i.e. tapping, typing, swiping, etc.). – Apple has featured us in the App Store multiple times, including in the ‘New Apps We Love’ section of the App Store homepage, an honor reserved for only a few hundred apps each year out of of more 2m+ iOS apps total. _ _ _ Other Links: – Android users can sign up to be notified when we have an app ready for them: laughable.com/android – We recently announced Laughable 2.0, which allows you to subscribe not only to podcast series, but also to individual artists. You can read more about 2.0 here: laughable.com/blog/april2017announcements – More on our long-term vision for Laughable: laughable.com/blog/helloworld – The ‘Unified Theory of Laughable’: laughable.com/blog/unifiedtheory – My thoughts about the future of comedy and podcasting: laughable.com/blog/nkthoughts16 – An FAQ for podcasters and comedians: laughable.com/artist-resources Instagram: @nedkenney Email: n@laughable.com
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About Laughable: A better way to discover comedians and podcasts
Deborah Kilpatrick
Chief Executive Officer of Evidation Health
Deborah Kilpatrick is the Chief Executive Officer of Evidation Health.Prior to this role, she served as the Chief Commercial Officer of genomic diagnostics company CardioDx. Earlier in her career, Deborah held multiple leadership roles at Guidant Corporation, including Research Fellow, Director of R&D, and Director of New Ventures in the Vascular Intervention Division. She serves on the Georgia Tech Advisory Board and is a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering. Deborah is a co-founder of the MedtechVision Conference, now held annually in Silicon Valley. She holds BS, MS and PhD degrees in mechanical engineering with a bioengineering focus from Georgia Tech.
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About Evidation Health, MedTech Women: We enable and empower everyone to participate in better health outcomes.
Derrick Ko
CEO & Co-founder of Spin
Derrick Ko is co-founder at Skinny Labs, also known as Spin. Prior to this, he was a product manager at Lyft and the first employee at Kicksend.
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About Spin: Spin is a stationless electric scooter company that provides dockless mobility systems.
Gerard Cunningham
Founder & CEO of Winistry
Gerard is a Blue Chip & Startup CEO, Board Member, Adviser and Investor. He is a former CMO, with expertise in strategy, operations, Big Data, AI, Digital Transformation, Mobile.
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About Winistry: The Intelligent Mobile App Platform: “WordPress for Mobile Apps, plus AI”
Jordan Brown
Founder, CEO of Lugg
Jordan Brown is the Founder, CEO at Lugg
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About Lugg: Lugg provides anything moved with the push of a button. Download Lugg on the App store and instantly get connected to a truck and 2 movers.
Joel Simkhai
Founder and CEO of Blendr
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About Blendr: Blendr is a geo-social networking application and social discovery platform for Android, iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Facebook.
Rahul Chabukswar
Founder & CEO of Homesome
Rahul Chabukswar is the Founder & CEO of Homesome, e-commerce platform for grocery stores and supermarkets, think of us as Shopify for Groderies! He previously held Engineering Management positions on Windows Azure & Windows Server teams at Microsoft.
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About Homesome: Homesome is an e-commerce platform for grocery stores and supermarkets, think of us as Shopify for Groceries!
Justin Marston
Founder & CEO of Tribe
Justin Marston is CEO and co-founder at Bamboo App. He served as a CEO and Co-Founder at Hypori, he is responsible for the company’s overall business strategy, operations, and long-term vision. A seasoned entrepreneur and technology innovator, Justin previously served as founder and CEO at BlueSpace Software, where he developed trusted virtualization security solutions for the defense and intelligence communities. Justin holds multiple patents, is a published author and a frequent speaker who has presented at numerous international defense and entrepreneurship conferences. He holds a master’s degree in chemistry from Durham University and is a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society.
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About Bamboo App, Tribe: Tribe is an application that offers an online workout and provides ways to connect and interact with local fitness members.
Sean Li
CEO & Co-founder of Magic
CEO @ Magic
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About Magic: Plug and play auth that grows with you
Chris DeWolfe
CEO & Co-Founder of Jam City
Chris DeWolfe is co-founder and CEO of Jam City, a global leader in mobile entertainment that provides social gaming experiences for millions of players around the world. Prior to Jam City, Chris co-founded and served as CEO of MySpace, where he popularized social networking and revolutionized the music industry. The site, formed in 2004, became the most visited in the U.S. by 2006 with 90 million members. When Chris left the company in 2009, MySpace had more than 130 million monthly active users around the world. Chris received Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2015 and the Producers Guild of America’s Vanguard award in 2009. TIME included him among its 2006 list of the 100 most influential people in the world, and Barbara Walters named him one of her 10 Most Fascinating People in 2007. He studied finance at the University of Washington and attended the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California, which honored him in 2006 with its Alumni Entrepreneur of the Year award. Chris is an advisor at USC’s Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and a board member of Uproxx Media Group. He lives in Los Angeles with his family and actively participates in animal rescue operations.
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About Jam City: Jam City is a mobile entertainment company, connecting the world through technology, creativity, and play.
Matt Ivester
Co-Founder & CEO of Hotshot
Matt Ivester is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, author and speaker. He is currently CEO of Kindr Inc., a company dedicated to making online kindness fun and easy. In 2011, through Serra Knight Publishing, he published lol…OMG!: What Every Student Needs to Know About Online Reputation Management, Digital Citizenship and Cyberbullying. And in 2012, he published the high school edition of the same. Since its release, lol…OMG! has become Amazon’s top-selling book on the topics of digital citizenship and cyberbullying. He has spoken at various institutions around the country on these topics. Prior to writing lol…OMG! he started several companies, including a concert ticket auction site, a multi-million dollar investment fund, and a college gossip site. In 2005, Ivester graduated from Duke University with a Bachelor of Science double majoring in Economics and Computer Science. In 2012, he graduated from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business with an MBA.
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About Hotshot: Screenshot technology
Selcuk Atli
Co-founder and CEO of Bunch
Selcuk Atli is Founder and CEO of Bunch; a group video chat app designed for live mobile games. Selcuk is a graduate of YCombinator (W14), an Endeavor entrepreneur, a Fulbright Scholar. Before Bunch, he was a Venture Partner at 500 Startups. Prior to that that he co-founded Boostable (acquired by Metric Collective) and before that he founded Manifest Commerce (acquired by Rakuten). Mr. Atli is also Co-founder of Nomadic Minds, a non-profit that connects top mentors in silicon valley with founders in emerging tech hubs around the world (acquired by TheFamily). Selcuk was recognized by Endeavor as a global high-impact entrepreneur and was the recipient of an innovation award from the World Bank. He advises several startups including StackShare, Fetcher.ai and Mobile Action. He’s also the lead singer and songwriter for The HMMS, a recording indie rock band based in New York City.
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About Bunch, Z1.VC: Bunch is the first app that allows its users to play their favorite games with friends over video chat.
Manish Rathi
Dreamer, Doer, Founder & CEO of JoyRun
Manish Rathi joined JoyRun as Dreamer, Doer, Founder, CEO in 2014.
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About JoyRun: JoyRun is a community based delivery company.
Simon Biddiscombe
President and CEO of MobileIron
Simon Biddiscombe is the president and CEO of MobileIron. Prior to becoming the CEO, Simon served as the CFO of the company.
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About MobileIron: MobileIron offers a mobile-centric, zero trust security approach that verifies user, device, application, network, and security threat.
Jeremy Paradise
CEO and Co-Founder of Auction Mobility
Jeremy Paradise is seasoned entrepreneur with a track record of building enterprise and consumer software companies. In 2011, he co-founded Quickable, a mobile marketplace designed to be easy to use and fair to both buyers and sellers on sites such as eBay and Craigslist. In 2013, he launched Auction Mobility, the mobile marketplace of choice for the world’s leading auction houses. Jeremy currently works as the CEO of Auction Mobility. Prior to Quickable and Auction Mobility, Jeremy spent 13 years providing consulting services and Siebel implementation analytics software. After leaving Siebel itself following a three-year tenure, he founded Paradise Analytics Inc. Paradise Analytics established multiple channel partnerships with enterprise software companies such as Siebel, Microsoft, and Oracle. It sold software and services to Fortune 1000 companies such as Genzyme, Solidworks, Serono, Pfizer Adams, Fleet Bank, and Viacell. Paradise Analytics was acquired in 2004.
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About Auction Mobility, QUICK Technologies: Auction Mobility is a customized auction software platform that provides auction services to promote tablet, mobile, and the web.
Crystal Rose
Founder and CEO of Make Sense Labs
Crystal Rose is the CEO and Founder of Sensay Inc, DBA Make Sense Labs. Full biography can be found at http://crystalrose.me
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About DeFiance Media, Make Sense Labs: Make Sense Labs Secure Messaging with Blockchain Technology
Michael Jaconi
Co-Founder and CEO of Button
Michael Jaconi is the Co-Founder and CEO of Button, the mobile commerce platform that maximizes the value of every tap. Jaconi formerly served as the CEO of Rakuten Loyalty and Executive Officer of parent company Rakuten. Michael helped build Rakuten Loyalty from a fledgling state to a multi-million dollar business in less than two years and led Rakuten’s $100M investment in Pinterest, helping bolster Rakuten’s position as one of the most innovative and aggressive global internet companies. Prior to his tenure at Rakuten, Jaconi co-founded two public affairs companies and has been a lifelong entrepreneur. Prior to his tenure at Rakuten Loyalty, Jaconi co-founded two public affairs companies in Washington, D.C. and served in a variety of capacities within various political campaigns.
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About Button: Button is the mobile commerce technology company that is powering a commerce-driven internet.
Renee Wang
Founder & CEO of Castbox
Renee Wang is the CEO and Founder of Castbox, an award-winning global podcast platform that enables anyone to easily find, access, create and enjoy spoken audio content. Prior to founding Castbox, Renee was a global app monetization expert at Google in user acquisition, optimization, and publisher engagement where she contributed to 42% of Google’s new app revenue. Renee holds a BS degree from Peking University, with a double major in Psychology and Mathematical Statistics.
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About Castbox: Castbox is a global podcast platform that enables anyone to easily find, access, create and enjoy spoken audio content.
Ali Asaria
CEO of Tulip Retail
Ali Asaria was formerly the CEO and founder of Well.ca, Canada’s largest online health, baby and beauty store. Prior to founding Well.ca, Ali worked at Research In Motion (RIM) where he independently developed BrickBreaker, the most popular Blackberry game that is now on more than 15 million devices worldwide. In 2005, Ali was RIM’s youngest patent recipient. Prior to RIM, Ali worked in Microsoft’s Redmond office on the Office 2007 User Interface Team.
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About Tulip Retail: Tulip Retail is a mobile app platform built exclusively for next generation store associates to offer a world-class omnichannel experience.
Niccolo De Masi
CEO of Dmy Technology Group
Niccolo de Masi joined Glu as its President and Chief Executive Officer in January 2010 and brings to Glu a strong background of senior management and executive experience in the mobile gaming and content sectors. Prior to joining Glu, Niccolo was the Chief Executive Officer and President of Hands-On Mobile, a mobile technology company and developer and publisher of mobile entertainment, since October 2009, and previously served as the President of Hands-On Mobile from March 2008 to October 2009. Niccolo was previously the Chief Executive Officer of the London-listed mobile entertainment company Monstermob Group PLC from June 2006 to February 2007. Mr. de Masi joined Monstermob in 2004 and, prior to becoming its Chief Executive Officer, held positions as its Managing Director and as its Chief Operating Officer where he was responsible for formulating and implementing Monstermob’s growth and product strategy. Prior to joining Monstermob, Mr. de Masi worked in a variety of corporate finance and operational roles within the technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) sector, beginning his career with JP Morgan on both the TMT debt capital markets and mergers and acquisitions teams in London. He has also worked as a physicist with Siemens Solar and within the Strategic Planning and Development divisions of Technicolor. Mr. de Masi holds an M.A. degree in Physics and an MSci. degree in Electronic Engineering—both from Cambridge University.
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About Dmy Technology Group, University of California, Los Angeles: Dmy Technology Group is a special purpose acquisition company focused on the mobile app ecosystem.
Alex Ma
CEO & Co-founder of Poparazzi
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About Poparazzi: Poparazzi is a photo sharing app where users can create social profiles of their friends.
Hesam Hosseini
CEO Match and Match Affinity of Match Group
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About Match, Match Group, Pof: Match Group is a division of IAC & online dating portfolio that comprises over forty brands around the world.
Wes Schroll
Co-Founder & CEO of Fetch Rewards
Wes Schroll is a serial entrepreneur who started his first company at 14-years old. After two small start up ventures, he wrote a business plan for what would one day become Fetch Rewards during his sophomore year at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He used that plan to win over $180,000 in cash, office space, and other prizes from business school plan competitions. Wes dropped out of school in 2013 to begin building the company. Over the following years he has built a company that has brought in over $20,000,000 in funding, grown an 80+ person team across 3 offices. Wes is the CEO, and oversees all high-level strategy and major business relationships. He focuses on keeping a finger on the pulse of the end-users to ensure the product delivers as much value as it can and he works with their large CPG partners to deliver a strong ROI for their participation in the program.
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About Fetch Rewards: Fetch Rewards is a mobile shopping platform that rewards shoppers for buying the brands they love.
Allon Bloch
Co-Founder and CEO of K Health
Allon Bloch is the CEO and Co-founder of K Health. Previously he served as the CEO of Vroom, the largest online car retailer in the U.S, Co-CEO of Wix, the world’s leading website publishing platform, and CEO of mySupermarket, a digital platform that empowers consumers to find the best prices for their groceries. Allon is also a former venture capitalist, serving as a Venture Partner with Greylock’s Europe/Israel fund and a General Partner at JVP. He holds an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School and is based in New York.
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About K Health: K Health is a data-driven digital primary care system that uses AI to deliver personalized primary care.
Bo Han
CEO of Buzzer
Bo led Twitter’s efforts in Global Live Sports Content Partnerships, and was responsible for driving partnerships with the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS, and PGA as well as with broadcasters – Disney/ESPN, FOX, NBC and Turner. Prior to joining Twitter in 2012, Bo started in the industry as a Global Account Director at Microsoft Corporation in New York, working with key and strategic global partners. Bo received his Bachelor of Arts from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and earned his MBA at Columbia Business School in New York, New York.
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About Buzzer: Buzzer is a notification-driven mobile platform for live sports personalized for fans.
Shirish Nadkarni
Co-Founder & CEO of Zoomingo
Shirish Nadkarni is the founder of Livemocha. He serves on the board as the representative of the commons stock shareholders. Prior to Livemocha, Shirish was the founder and CEO of TeamOn Systems where led a team that built a unique consumer wireless e-mail platform that is in use today by over 2 million BlackBerry users. TeamOn Systems was acquired by RIM in 2002 for its innovative work which formed the basis for RIM’s highly successful launch into the consumer space as the BlackBerry Internet E-mail service. Prior to RIM and TeamOn Systems, Shirish was a senior executive at Microsoft MSN where he successfully drove the product and business strategy that catapulted MSN.com from ninth place to among the Web’s top three portal sites. While at MSN, he personally orchestrated the acquisition of Hotmail and partnership with Inktomi Corporation to jump start Microsoft’s entry into the two largest internet application categories – E-mail and Search respectively.
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About Zoomingo: Zoomingo is a shopping discovery app for Android and iPhone devices that provides local sales deals.
Tyler Faux
Co-Founder & CEO of Supergreat
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About Supergreat: Supergreat is a beauty community of real people reviewing the beauty products that work for them.
Michael Golomb
Founder and CEO of FanVestor
A hands-on company builder, Michael’s background as an entrepreneurial CFO with three exits behind him, is the culmination of twenty years of senior management experience across a broad spectrum of industries. His expertise has been successfully applied across verticals ranging from startups to large public corporations including Blockchain, manufacturing, digital health & medical devices, consumer electronics & hardware, software/SaaS, and real estate. In addition to Michael’s global experience in raising equity though variety of public and private equity/debt instruments, as well as experience in handling complex M&A transactions, he also brings exceptional knowhow of Blockchain technology to DASAN Zhone Solutions. Earlier in 2017, (prior to joining DASAN) together with the other Blockchain industry veterans, Michael co-founded the ICO Governance Foundation, a non-profit decentralized global organization with a protocol-based global community mission that performs a self-regulatory function for ICOs in decentralized capital markets. In Oct 2016, Michael founded EdenCoin – a global cryptocurrency quantitative market-maker start-up with offices in San Francisco and New York: a proprietary liquidity aggregation platform to consolidate trading volume and data from major cryptocurrency market sources to run algorithmic market-making and liquidity provisioning, as well as other, quantitative strategies. From June 2015 to May 2017, while CFO at Breathometer, a hyper-growth digital health and medical device company, he helped take that company from pre-revenue to shipping in the FDA regulated space, forming OEM partnership with Philips, raising capital from venture capital firms and global strategic investors, as well as successfully achieving the ISO13485:2003 Certification milestone. Prior to Breathometer, Michael was the first employee (CFO, Board Member, and Head of SF Office) at BitFury, and helped build the market leading full-service Blockchain technology company, and one of the largest private infrastructure providers in the Blockchain ecosystem, taking it from zero to over $500M valuation and from 3 to over 120 employees in 7 countries between December 2013 through April 2015. Other notable roles include: ” Co-Founder and Co-President at Mayak RE, where he led the formation of JV with Morgan Stanley and MCP Private Equity Fund in Europe. ” CFO of Sistema Hals, he directed a highly successful London/LSE IPO with market capitalization at $2.7B. ” Head of Compliance / Sr. Finance Manager at Trimble, he effectively implemented global Sarbanes-Oxley compliance program, participated in private debt placement, as well as acquired/integrated several international technology companies. Michael received MSc in Management from Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2013, his MBA from Santa Clara University in 2000, and his B.A. with double major in Economics and Diplomacy & World Affairs from Occidental College in 1996. He is also a CPA (inactive) in California.
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About FanVestor: FanVestor is a FINRA-regulated crowdfunding platform that enables entertainment and sports celebrities to capitalize on their fanbases.
Robbi Katherine Anthony
Founder and CEO of Euphoria.LGBT
RKA has worked on a slew of other technology projects prior to Solace resulting in national media attention, multiple entrepreneurship competition victories, and numerous product launches.
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About Euphoria.LGBT: Euphoria.LGBT builds technology solutions that restore agency and dignity for transgender individuals going through gender transition.
Eugene Park
CEO & Founder of Honeydue
Eugene Park is the CEO and co-founder of Honeydue. He used to be the VP engineering – applications at Flixster. Eugene earned his bachelor’s degree at University of California at Berkeley.
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About Honeydue: Honeydue is a mobile app for couples that offers tools to share information on respective account balances and spending.
Jeff Krahel
CEO & Co-Founder of Playbook
Founder at Fitner Media.
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About Playbook: Playbook is the #1 creator economy platform for talent in the fitness & athletic industry.
Jeff Krahel
Co-Founder & CEO of Playbook
Jeff Krahel is a Co-Founder and serves as the Chief Executive Officer at Playbook.
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About Playbook: Playbook is the #1 creator economy platform for talent in the fitness & athletic industry.
Julia Taylor Cheek
CEO and Founder of EverlyWell
Julia Taylor Cheek is the CEO and Founder of EverlyWell, a digital health startup empowering consumers to order, self-collect, and understand lab tests. Based in Austin, EverlyWell launched in June 2016 after raising $3M in capital and garnering awards from Tech Crunch and Rock Health. They now have over 5,000 customers in 46 states. Julia was also named the number one female entrepreneur to watch by CIO magazine for 2017. Prior to founding EverlyWell in 2015, Julia was the Vice President of Corporate Development and Strategy at MoneyGram International, a public financial services company that operates in 200 countries. As the youngest VP in the company, she worked for MoneyGram’s CFO for several years, leading corporate transactions, restructuring projects, and special projects for the CEO. Before that, she served as the founding Director of Strategy and Operations at the George W. Bush Institute and played a key role in building the organization from just a handful of employees to the Presidential Center that you see today at Southern Methodist University. After attending Vanderbilt, Julia started her career in management consulting at Deloitte and went on to earn her MBA from the Harvard Business School, where she graduated as a Baker Scholar with high distinction. She also is a former multiple World Champion equestrian, officially retiring in 2009.
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About EverlyWell: EverlyWell is a digital health company that offers consumer testing, virtual care, at-home collection tests, and digital results.
Christof Wittig
Founder and CEO of Hornet
Christof Wittig is a serial software entrepreneur and investor. He is Founder and CEO at Hornet Networks, the world’s queer social network, and Managing Partner at Strive Capital, based in San Francisco, CA. Prior to Hornet, Christof was founder and CEO at LiquidM, the first mobile DSP provided as a SaaS platform, which he formed in 2013 when restructuring Madvertise, Europe’s largest mobile ad network. Previously he was the founder and CEO of Servo Software, the world’s first Android middleware company, which merged with Synclore to form Kii in 2010, today a leading player in the IoT space based in Tokyo. He was also founder and CEO at db4objects, an open source, “no sql” database company, which he sold to Versant in December 2008. Before that he was the founder and CEO of Apsis Software to revolutionize real estate cost management with software and led the company through its sale to Nemetschek in 1999 and its merger with conject in 2002. Christof is an investor and/or board member in various companies, including Enish (TYO:3667), Metago, KeepSafe, VirtaHealth, Cerebral, and App Annie. He has been active in the US, Germany, and throughout Asia. Christof holds a Master of Science in Management from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, where he was a Sloan Fellow in the Class of 2004 and author of the case studies on MySQL and Google’s Android. He also holds a Dipl.Ing. from Technical University Munich.
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About GAY GAMES 11 HONG KONG 2022, Hornet: Hornet is the world’s gay social network with 30 million members worldwide
Kevin Tan
Founder & CEO of Snackpass
Kevin Tan is a co-founder and CEO at Snackpass.
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About Celena Software & Design Consultancy, ChinaDaily, Snackpass, Yale School of Management (SOM): Snackpass is a social commerce platform that focuses on mobile order pickup at local restaurants.
Denis Mars
Co-founder and CEO of Proxy
Denis Mars, CEO & Co-Founder Before Proxy, Mars was the Director of Admissions at Y Combinator, responsible for initiating programs to help discover and evaluate the most promising founders and ideas that could change the world for the better. Prior to Y Combinator, Mars founded Meetings.io, which was acquired by Jive, founded an automotive startup, and was a chief engineer for the champion winning Formula 3 race team. Mars has a B.S. in Physics and a B.E. Honors in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Sydney. Startup founder, YC alum. Physics, Mech Engineering, Code, Design, UI/UX, Products. Likes to engineer the impossible and disrupt the status quo. Tech Startups: •Y Combinator Alum – Embedster Inc W2010 •Y Combinator Alum – Bitplay Inc (Meetings.io) W2011 •Meetings.io acquired by Jive (NASDAQ:JIVE) in 2012 Other accomplishments: •Modena Inc – Acquired by Auto Group in 2005 •3Jive Inc – Music Platform Technology •Roxentric – Indie Record Label •Formula 3 Racing – Chief Engineer 2x championship wins •Formula SAE – Team Lead 2001 winning team
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About Proxy: Access More, Share Less. Proxy designs and builds privacy-first, human-led, identity technologies. With Proxy ID, your world is now open.
Grant Michael Leingang
President / CEO of BLVCK DIVMOND
Grant Michael Leingang is President and CEO for BLVCK DIVMOND in Las Vegas. He has been a digital entrepreneur since the age of 15 and holds a true passion for technology. BLVCK DIVMOND focuses on developing organizations, businesses, and foundations. Their work passion is simple and derived from a belief that BLVCK DIVMOND’s company operations will be a different experience. Leingang has created assets for many high-end brands like CORE Hydration. He has been known to utilize software and deliver original entrepreneurial visions using creative cost-effective methods that result in a positive ROI.
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About BLVCK DIVMOND, Illest, PDX ADVERTISING, WE’RE A CULT, INC.: Creative direction, web design and development. Project direction and management. Graphic design. SEO. Social media development. UX design.
John S. Shriber
Co- Founder & CEO of Roomster
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About Roomster: The leading multi platform roommate matching & shared housing application. IOS, Android & fully responsive design
Aaron Albert
Co-Founder/CEO of Mine’d
Co-Founder/CEO at Mine’d
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About Mine’d: The Emotional Network – Daily, live guided emotional health sessions
Jonathan Coon
Founder, CEO of Wikibuy
Jonathan Coon is the founder and CEO of 1-800 Contacts. He works closely with the Austin startup community helping them to build their businesses.
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About Austin Emergency Supply Foundation, Glasses.com, Wikibuy: Wikibuy aims to make saving money effortless, automatically finding lower prices, coupons, and rewards while you shop online.
